And Lightning, Everywhere But The Sky
by midnight-blue
Summary: Rogue wants to feel life. [hint of femslash, JeanRogue]


**Title:** And Lightning, Everywhere But The Sky  
** Author:** Kristin  
** Pairing: **Jean/Rogue  
** Disclaimer:** Characters do not belong to me. If they did, many things would have happened differently  
** Summary:** Rogue wants to feel life  
**Notes:** I thought it would be interesting to explore the possibility of Rogue actually growing so accustomed to the voices/personas (however latent they might eventually grow to be) in her head that she fears their absence. In a way, I think she's so isolated as it is, by the very nature of her mutation, that it's not implausible to think she might like the company of the lives she's absorbed, which is obviously a dark place to be, and that's what I wanted to explore here. No explicit femslash, not even a kiss, just a hint of something. I like the Jean/Rogue pairing because Rogue in relationships with others is so complicated physically, but Jean has the gift of telepathy, allowing for the possibility of a relationship without necessarily needing the physical element.

* * *

As many times as she cupped her hands around the little creatures that flew with fire within the heat supplementing her youthful Mississippi summer twilights, she only killed one once. By accident, of course. Rogue never_ meant_ anything malicious. She wasn't sure she meant _anything_ anymore. 

Her five-year-old hands had miscalculated their exact strength upon the minimal firefly and its wane light. Her much older skin, now, brought death by its very existence. Just a feathered touch could be fatal. So her mutation now seemed to be making certain she would leave a mark, like the bug lightning, before following summer nights, and their inevitable impermanence, into little more than memory.

An existence of breathing without life.

But they would know her as the mutant who took from others.

This particular night, far from Mississippi, it threatened rain, with the sort of encapsulating humidity that reminded her of moist nights in the south, drawing her inevitably to her happier childhood, when she was more than an untouchable.

She used to hate rain, but in the last year had come to appreciate it for its touch. It was one of the few earthly elements capable of reaching humanity on a tangible level; air invisibly fed the lungs, and wind, too, went unseen. Thunder was heard and felt, but rain, and its colder variant, snow, were capable of touching and being touched.

But lightning, which could destroy, was the only earthly element manifesting within her.

She secretly hoped if she sat outside long enough, maybe the rain would squash the deadly sparks within her, ridding her of her disease, and she could wear gloves again only in the winter.

It was like this, legs crossed beneath her under a darkening sky, that Jean found her.

Rogue didn't have to turn around at the voice quietly uttering her name. They had lately seen more of each other, and that, coupled with her time spent carrying Logan in her head, had made her unnervingly sensitive to the sound of Dr. Jean Grey's voice.

"Looks like rain," Jean leaned on the bench, palms flat against the metal.

"I'm hoping."

Rogue still hadn't turned around, but she was aware of Jean staring at her, so she looked at a tree in the distance. Jean decided to sit next to her, but kept a sizable physical distance between them.

"Is your hand okay?"

Rogue looked down, rubbing her left hand against her right, where she'd covered a mild burn with some gauze and medical tape. It was a stupid accident. Stupid. _Accident_. It was. And it _was_ definitely an accident.

"Fine," she said as quietly as she could without being silent.

"I wish you would let me look at it."

It was just a silly experiment. To feel.

That's what she wanted. What she sought with fervency now.

To feel. Anything.

People lived their lives in her head, but they had been, and would continue to grow quieter. And it scared her most at 4 a.m. when she would have to plug her ears against silence just to hear them, just to keep living vicariously through existential outlines, through shadows. She wanted them there. How absurd. She hated them, but she wanted them now, because their lives were what her own couldn't be.

When everyone else's life stopped, when the silence finally and completely came, she would have to make fire. Because she was just a flash of lightning, after all.

"Will you tell me how it happened?" Jean wouldn't stop staring at her. Probably to make her talk. That had to be the only reason.

Rogue, perhaps illogically, had thought today that she might test her theory of fires and human sustainability. Perhaps, she thought she might find, fire was another element she could count on to touch her. So John had held out his hand and she put her bare skin up to its surface.

In retrospect, what had she really thought would happen? That she could burn the bad skin away? That she could absorb his power and have a little more life to keep the silence at bay tonight?

In reality, she knew that the only thing to come of it would be a burn. An ugly scar that only she would have to see. Maybe she wanted a little manifestation of the way she felt inside. Maybe she just wanted to feel something.

And if it took a small fire to remind her that she was more than the ghosts behind her eyes, she accepted that.

But Jean didn't. And Jean, annoyingly, seemed to know why Rogue had done it. She wasn't going to walk away from the bench alone. Jean turned at her waist, putting her left arm behind the bench and only inches from Rogue's shoulder.

"Rogue," she persisted.

"I was thinking about fireflies. We used to get them all the time in Mississippi. Right about this time of year, too."

Jean sighed a bit, but let Rogue continue.

"They're insects. And people usually hate insects. But not fireflies. I mean, what good are they, though? They just shine. I guess that's it. They sort of light up the sky. Maybe we think things aren't so dark as they seem. You think that's it?"

Jean crossed her right arm over her stomach.

"I think we like...luminance. I think we like that an ugly little insect can be beautiful in the dark, and help us to see."

Rogue started to tug at the fingers of her right glove, debating whether or not to take it off. Would it be so bad just to show the burn to Jean, to give her peace of mind? They had grown close, and lately, Rogue felt that Jean was one of the few places she could find a sense of safety.

Jean, aware of Rogue's movement and hesitancy, inched her left hand closer to Rogue's shoulder.

"Have you seen any fireflies lately?" Jean prodded gently.

"No. Not as many up here. I was thinking tonight...since it might rain and it's humid. But haven't seen 'em."

Jean uncertainly touched her hand to Rogue's shoulder, unsurprised when she flinched a bit.

Rogue waited, then eventually tugged her glove off, pulling at the badly applied medical tape to expose the burn, which had blistered, but wasn't itself bad enough to warrant concern. The reasons behind it even being there, however, _were_.

Jean brought her left hand down and reached out to touch the gauze, but Rogue pulled away violently.

"I don't want you to touch me, Jean."

Rogue had become a magnificent liar.

Jean was half-tempted to make a try for it again, but stopped herself. She felt things for Rogue she couldn't articulate properly, and not on the spur of the moment. She wasn't even sure what it meant, why she found herself wanting to simply be in Rogue's presence. And she certainly wouldn't venture to presume Rogue felt the same. The girl who couldn't touch anyone, after all, had enough problems as it stood.

But Jean wanted to touch her _somehow_, knowing if she did, she couldn't walk away and carry on with the life she had been leading. Things would shift. Like a mutation. But things had already shifted, irreparably, whether she was aware of just how, or not.

Rogue had long been trying to work out whether her attraction to Jean would just be inherent, thanks to Logan, or whether it was simply the initially unwelcome impetus for a larger affection. Adoration, even. Love...maybe, frighteningly, was what she truly felt for Jean.

Jean, who had often come to her room at night with a soothing cup of tea, when nightmares awakened her. Jean, who chided her injuries from training with concern due almost a lover. Jean, who followed at her back for seconds longer than she needed to.

Jean, who would sit beside her on a bench when everyone else watched from a distance.

"Let me just get a closer look."

Jean pulled on a pair of gloves, which surprised Rogue. Even more surprising, Jean took some initiative and gently touched Rogue's wrist, waiting for Rogue to pull away again. When she didn't, Jean pulled Rogue's hand closer, inspecting the burn. She seemed satisfied after a minute, settling Rogue's arm down against her leg, but not releasing her hold.

"Amazing things really," Jean said, amusedly, indicating the gloves on her own hands. "Of course, I have so many of them. And I'm so used to wearing them, they're like a second skin. They protect people from my skin, and me from...others. But I can still feel everything as though they weren't there at all."

Jean's voice had dropped a bit and her grip on Rogue's wrist had transitioned to a methodic stroke.

"It's not a guarantee. They can tear, they can--"

"Some people," Jean said, forcefully interrupting Rogue's pessimism, "think they just flicker. That they flicker for everyone. They're noticed, but disregarded. You don't flicker for me, Marie. You burn."

"Burn?" Rogue teased. "That's not very romantic."

"It's real," Jean tightened her grip, drawing Rogue closer.

"I'm dangerous, Jean. What I feel...for you...I want you in my head. I _want_ to touch you, so I can fall asleep with you right here," Rogue tapped at her temple, looking down, as though ashamed.

Jean leaned in, dipping her head to meet Rogue's downward gaze.

"I think that's love."

"But we can't do that. I'll hurt you."

Jean touched Rogue's chin, forcing her to meet her gaze. Then she stroked her forehead, trailing a hand down her cheek.

"I _can_ be in here," Jean indicated Rogue's head. "With a little time."

Rogue squeezed Jean's hand, smiling shyly, thinking of fireflies that shine to find their mate. Their love. No one seems to forget that light.

And when the rain came, Rogue was happy to hold Jean's hand, no longer anticipating the death of fire.

_fin._


End file.
